Readers review the shutdown of 2013

Now that the government shutdown is over, it is worth taking a quick review of this debacle, brought to you by a small group of extremists who now control the formerly reasonable Republican Party. This effort, developed by the tea party crowd a year or so ago, has resulted in economic harm to the economy (Standard and Poor's say that "$24 billion was taken out of the economy" in those 16 days). A key credit rating agency of our biggest creditor, China, has downgraded our credit standing, meaning everyone will pay more in the future. We have become the laughingstock of the world with this folly, and the Republican Party has managed to gain an unprecedented drop in favorability ratings, while also boosting the popularity of the Affordable Care Act and even the standing of President Obama.Even the staunchly conservative Matt Drudge has come out predicting this irresponsible effort will result in "the return of Speaker Pelosi." All for adding language to the ACA that was already there, regarding income verification. This is what was inevitable given the extremist behavior of these people. Gerrymandered districts or not, many of these incompetent extremists will be booted out of office in 2014.Dennis Hawley, Weaverville###The shutdown is over and the only thing accomplished is that the usual suspects came to the forefront. Commanding Gen. Ted Cruz led his valiant gang of warriors to their utter defeat and humiliation, save for the alternate reality ideologues among them who still claim they won the battle. The beleaguered John Boehner helped snatch defeat from the jaws of a victory that was never possible and has now disappeared like the octopus that squirts his ink and then is gone from view. Could any two people have presided over a more humiliating debacle than these two? In the end, the Republicans got exactly nothing for this two week bout of posturing and bloviating save for looking like absolute idiots. The American people lost more than $24 billion of economic activity according to S&P, lost a couple billion dollars revenue to the U.S. Treasury, countless people and businesses were hurt and lost money never to be recovered, but to our good fortune we were lucky enough to be treated to endless cable TV views of a lot of representatives who evidently are new to living on planet earth.Reality meets Ted Yoho. You now know the true meaning of oxymoron. Ron Sexton, Asheville

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Readers review the shutdown of 2013

Now that the government shutdown is over, it is worth taking a quick review of this debacle, brought to you by a small group of extremists who now control the formerly reasonable Republican Party.